Title: Memories of a Storybook Princess
Author: Geekmomma
Disclaimer: All the brainwork was J.K.Rowling's, I am just in it for the cheap thrills.
Pairing: Ginny/Harry, implied Harry/Draco
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: I seem to be obsessed with Ginny. I can write only Ginny fics. I think I am cursed. And, much to my dismay, there is no Pansy in this story.
Ginny wakes up early most mornings, and tries to get a grip on her life. She holds her very sweet, very milky tea in her lap, sits in the comfortable chair by the window, and pretends to read the Daily Prophet. Most of the memories dredged up on these mornings are from her last years at Hogwarts. Now, these seem like some kind of Muggle television show. A daytime television show. One with a name like And Forever They Laughed or Slowly the Memory or something similarly ridiculous.
At the time, she had thought she was in love. She swooned at the sight of him. She had harbored a crush for all those years on Harry Potter. And then suddenly, at long last, the feelings had been returned. Oh, Joyous Day! They were going to be in love forever. Her name would be linked with his in the history books: "Harry Potter's soul mate," "Harry Potter's one true love," "Harry Potter's bride." They would have a tremendous wedding, and everyone would know that she was his, and he was hers.
What it had been in actuality and what it was for a long time (what it was even now?) was ridiculous and one-sided and difficult.
But wasn't that the attraction, really? That she couldn’t understand him, and he was so much to the world, and she was so little? She was just the latest Weasley. It is amazing what being 16 years old had done to her self-confidence. He was a little older, and was nice, and didn't even realize how fucked up he was going to make everything by pretending to be in love with her. She tries not to be bitter. After all, she still has to see him every Christmas, Easter and on all school holidays when he visits the Burrow with Ron. What a pleasant experience that is.
The sex had been good, though. Kind of. Well, maybe not good so much as instructive. (Have you ever? Does this feel? Can I touch? What if we? Too hard? Too fast? More? Less? Faster? Harder?)
Thinking about the sex makes her blush. She often returns to the indelible image she has of them alone in the great hall, the day that things had ended between them. The doors were locked, and she was on his lap, straddling him and making what she hoped were sexy noises as they kissed. She has a picture in her mind of how glamorous they looked, and remembers how she wanted him to want her like he had never wanted anyone or anything before. They were up at the head table, sitting in Snape's chair, not quite center stage. She moved herself over him, up and down and back again, and wondered if he could feel how wet she was through her clothes, wondered if he liked it. At the time, it felt like a special, new magic. It felt like there were only the two of them in the world, and it was wonderful.
But that is not the way it goes with Harry Potter, and it was never just the two of them.
They came out soon after, because of the noise, to see Hermione and Ron and Draco Malfoy (of all people!) out in the hallway, in front of the doors. Hermione shot them a sheepish look from the corner of her eye, and then returned her focus to separating Ron and Malfoy who were (not unusually) at each other’s throats. Draco glared at the two of them, as they exited the hall, and Ginny had felt a perverse sense of satisfaction, knowing that she possessed the object of that hatred. She had also realized, a moment later, that somehow those three had been watching. Realizing that the private moment she and Harry had shared was being evaluated by more than their own eyes, she had grown embarrassed and defensive and angry, and had launched her self at Ron, her own brother. He shouldn't have been privy to this kind of information about his own sister, and she couldn't really hurt Hermione, and how on earth could she fist-fight with Draco Malfoy? Well, at the time she hadn’t thought she would be able to do it, but later, she could have strangled him with her bare hands.
Malfoy had sniggered and shot Harry a look. From her position above her brother on the floor, with her fists battling his long arms to do some kind of damage, Ginny heard him say archly "In-fighting in the Gryffindors? How courageous, Potter." Abruptly, Malfoy had stalked off. Ron had pinned her hands and shoved her off as she paused, listening to Malfoy's words. It has seemed such a strangely non-caustic insult, from Malfoy.
Of course, she found out later, much later, that the story playing was not hers, was not ever hers, always Harry Potter's. She was the bit part, the comedic interlude, the sad orchestral music before the big love scene.
And they had all known. Hermione, Ron, Malfoy had all known and she didn't.
All these years later, and she still feels 16 years old, thinking about it.
She has a good life, now. But it wasn't the one she had pictured at 16, when she was going to marry Harry Potter, and guard the world against Darkness, fighting at his side. She wasn't famous. She wasn’t anything other than ordinary, she was anonymous, again. She had a husband, she supposed she loved him. She had her kids, whom she fed and cared for and protected. She had a job, and she like it well enough. She had everything she never thought she wanted. She wasn't sure if she wanted it now. She had never imagined herself in this life. She had never recovered from the shock that just because Prince charming comes and sweeps you off your feet doesn’t mean you live happily every after.
Nothing had really prepared her for real life. There aren’t a lot of love stories read to little girls where the heroine is unceremoniously dumped by her boyfriend for his new boyfriend- the one everyone thought he hated.
Ginny shakes her head, and sipping the last of her morning tea, now grown cold, she pushes these fading and embarrassing memories back into the recesses of her twisted up 16 year old mind for another day, and returns to her real life. She has breakfast to make.